October 09, 2006

• This looks like a much nicer place to play it. There's a bridge somewhere around here.
• Black flies and pooh sticks don't go together. And as for a Pooh Sticks Championship, bah! One of the whole points of pooh sticks is that ye can't have a champion. Ye drop a stick into the water on the upstream side. Then it comes out on the downstream side. That's all there is to it. It's not a sport, it's a happening - and the water does all the work. Just lookit those damnfool adults standing there - they're crazed by dreams of competition! Send 'em home at once, they have no business interfering with an entertainment geared to small kids.
• The pooh-sticks link would have been better than the Wikipedia link for the front page. We play this every now and then at the park. It took a couple of goes to convince the preschooler that sticks make more progress than rocks. And that the ducks don't actually want sticks on their backs.
• *sings a song to the bees about clouds*
• I played this with my boys when they were little, they always loved it. They grew up. Now I play by myself, I still love it.
• /flings poostick and runs!
• Was never an enthusiast of this 'game' - found it dull by contrast to other things we might have done. Was far more fun to see if I could dam the small streams rather than play pooh sticks. My preference was to feed the ducks or to find where the kingfishers were nesting. My mother's notions were of fun were so utterly different from mine! I was quite shocked because she had no notion of mighty engineering feats just begging to be done down by the waterside.
• Sticks seems like such a lovely, gentle game. Unfortunately, I was such a little turd that the best game was spit-off-the-bridge. Engineering was pretty good--especially if it involved mud. My boys were the consumate engineers. I remember a great camping trip. They played all day in the creek, built a dam which later that night flooded out two camp trailers and a tent (not ours) Some pissed off campers. *whistles casually, packs gear, drives off in a cloud of dust while ignoring swearing
• Mud is good. Mud is great. I think I've slopped some on my plate.
• I must have lived in a slightly more urban area as a child. First we would drop the sticks. Then, the parimutuel windows would open. The early favorite, the oak stick with no bark, had been set by the morning line at 9 to 5 but the punters were looking elsewhere, and it played out at 3 to 1. The Maple Twig with Leaf/Hollow Apple Branch/Elm with Moss trifecta box saw much action. Nobody gave the Spruce Splinter a second look. As the crowd rushed to the other side of the bridge, the tension was palpable. We all crushed out our cigarettes and waited for ole wet woodie to walk on by. C'mon, daddy needs a new pair a shoes...
• Ralph, you dog!
• Maple will always do well, Ralph. Twiggez vous?
• Always played pooh-sticks with my brother as a kid. Haven't thought about that for a long time.